Gareth Southgate's men have had a bumpy preparation to the Euros, but their plan is clear. Attack the opposition in their own defensive areas and bring the intensity to the right end of the pitch. But can a team with several key injuries and questions over their best XI actually pull it off? Adam Clery assesses their chances.
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00:00Hello, hello, hello, hello, everybody. Adam Cleary from 442 here and the Euros are finally,
00:08finally upon us. England are going to be there. Everyone thinks they're going to do really
00:12well. Is football finally going to come home? I don't f***ing know. But what I do know is
00:18that this England side probably represents the best chance they have of a major honour
00:22since Euro 96. If you'll just kindly take a seat over there, we will go through precisely
00:28why that is, what they will look to be doing, who needs to perform well for that to happen
00:33and where potentially it might all go wrong, which it won't.
00:38All right, so it is expected when England start the tournament against Serbia, I want
00:44to say Serbia, is it? It's been a real long couple of days to me. I think it's Serbia.
00:48Anyway, their first game, this will be the starting 11 and this is not what Gareth Southgate
00:54would have wanted. And that's because every tournament he has overseen so far, England
00:57have gotten as far as they have because of this defensive bedrock of Jordan Pickford,
01:02Stones Maguire, Kyle Walker and most of the time, Luke Shaw. Luke Shaw may make an appearance
01:07later in the tournament, but he won't be fully fit. Harry Maguire has gone entirely because
01:11he's not fit. John Stones will play, but does not look fit. And Kyle Walker apparently isn't
01:16even fit to... So that obviously is really bad. But the thing is, while all of Southgate's
01:24other tournaments have definitely been based around sort of being solid defensively and
01:28then seeing what you can do in the other end of the pitch, hence why he gets all these
01:31accusations of being negative and always picking his favourites and all of this, there's definitely
01:35been a shift in what England are trying to do over the last 12 months. And it's the kind
01:40of shift that might make what's going on back here not that important. And this change in
01:46England's play style is about one thing, I'm holding two up, one thing and one thing only.
01:52I'm going to Rod Stewart it. Jude Bellingham. You see this England side has for the first time,
01:58I think in my entire actual life, a genuine argument that they have the best player in the
02:05world. Now whether he actually is or not is something that's probably going to run on and
02:08on and on for his entire career. But the very fact that England have a player in that conversation
02:14is worth building your entire team around. And thus what Gareth Southgate is trying to do is
02:19change England from being a sort of defensively sound, compact, solid, quick counter attacking
02:25sides to one of the most high pressing aggressive teams in the world. And how this works is all
02:31about trying to win the ball back in your opposition's defensive third like turning it over
02:37somewhere where you can straight away go for goal. At the 2018 World Cup and the 2020 European
02:42Championships, England were rank average at doing this like on a per 90 minute basis,
02:47they were smack bang in the middle of all the teams at that tournament, they were doing it
02:52somewhere between once and once and a half per match. But then at the last World Cup and Qatar,
02:57they suddenly jumped from the middle of the pack here to the second most aggressive team at the
03:02tournament. They went from doing it once or once and a half per match to doing it over three times
03:07per game. Now that's actually a fairly major stylistic change to pull off in just one tournament
03:13cycle but it happened really easily for England because of this graph. No player in that entire
03:19tournament, and bear in mind that England went out in the quarterfinals so he wasn't even there
03:23as long as he could have been, no player won the ball back in the final third more than Jude
03:28Bellingham. Now I could sit here and do an entire video on all the specific things that Jude
03:33Bellingham is clearly a generational talent at but the one thing he wants to do on a football pitch
03:39more than anything else is play it here. The thing is when you look at his defensive numbers
03:43on FB ref it's like oh yeah he's quite good at that, he's certainly not one of the best players
03:48in the world but then you think about how much of the ball Real Madrid have, like how many chances
03:52does he realistically get to do things like this, then you realise that those bars might just look
03:58quite high but in context they're amazing. So fundamentally if England want to get the best
04:03out of Jude Bellingham they need to join him in this mindset, they can't keep being a team that
04:09sits off and looks to force mistakes and then move quickly up the pitch, they need to win the
04:14ball back in the final third as well because that's the thing about playing a high press,
04:19if just one player's doing it then that's an idiot, he's just like leaving space for everybody else
04:25and he's ruining everything but if everybody does it that's f****** terrifying. And while the results
04:30of England's four preparation games have not exactly inspired confidence we have seen this
04:36high pressing style manifesting itself in every single one of them. Against Brazil and Belgium
04:40they refused to give them any time on the ball even if that meant they got passed around and
04:45through by genuinely very good teams and in the Iceland game in particular which we did cover
04:49extensively right here on 442, all of England's best moments came from when they implemented this
04:55strategy well and all of Iceland's best moments came from when they implemented this strategy
05:00badly. Like bottom line if your press is not aggressive enough you will get played through,
05:04like England are getting played through here and if your press is aggressive enough then you will
05:08force mistakes out of the opposition and create chances like England are doing here. And I know
05:13he does have his critics and seemingly an awful lot of them but you do have to give Gareth Southgate
05:18credit with just how unafraid to bring this system in he has been. Like Marcus Rashford and Jack
05:23Grealish are not in this squad, not because of their club form because that doesn't matter as
05:28much as people think it does at a national level, they're not in the squad because they can't do
05:33this. Like those same defensive numbers I just showed you for Bellingham right these are Rashford's
05:38and Grealish's respectively. They're both capable of doing great things for England on the ball and
05:43out of possession but they represent the old style of play and that is why somebody like Anthony
05:47Gordon is in the squad ahead of them, like when you compare him to these two in this specific regard
05:53he wipes the floor with them. And people can and I'm sure will still say things about Southgate
05:58like he's too defensive and negative or he's tactically limited or he picks his favourites
06:03and stuff but this what he's doing here is not any of those things it's really positive and
06:08aggressive and it's actually tactically quite ambitious and certainly there are a lot of
06:12players in the squad who probably thought they were his favourites who are going to be sitting
06:15watching at home just like me and you. Now then so because of injury we know that England's back four
06:21probably picks itself and because of system we know their front four probably picks itself but
06:26they do still have two fairly major problems. First off is what is the right profile who is the
06:32right player to go alongside Declan Rice in the middle and the other is what the f*** do you do
06:39with Phil Foden. First off I think this will just be a situational decision Gareth Southgate has to
06:44make like for me it's got to be Connor Gallagher in the system because if you want to have this
06:47pressing style that suits Bellingham he is the best player available to join in with that. You
06:53do need somebody to do the dog work in the centre so everyone else can thrive but against teams that
06:57might well just try and be really defensive against England and low block and you're not
07:01really going to get the chance to win the ball back off Adam Wharton or Trent Alexander-Arnold
07:05would really help them to open that up. I think they might appear in the group stage but also
07:10there will be games and situations where Kobe Meunier looks absolutely vital like England
07:14historically do not control games especially against the bigger teams particularly well they
07:19haven't got the press resistance or the ball retention and Meunier offers them something here
07:24they've never ever had before like certain games you are not going to want him but in other games
07:30you will need him. But anyway the other big conundrum England have is Phil Foden right you
07:35should just start on the left he can play there he occasionally does for City he's just won the
07:39Premier League Player of the Year if they didn't have Bellingham they'd be building everything
07:42around him but the problem is that number one being wide on the left is a complete waste of
07:47Phil Foden's ability and you've never seen him have an impactful and effective game for England
07:52when he is stuck out there and two he's a really really bad fit for this system that's designed to
07:59get the most out of Bellingham like in terms of what he offers you in this regard he's practically
08:04the same as a Grealish or a Rashford as opposed to an Anthony Gordon so the decision Gareth Southgate
08:09has to make is is he so good and will provide so many just intangible moments of magic that I don't
08:16care if he helps the system actually if he's a detriment to it is that worth it because he's just
08:20that good and the thing is as well if you look back over the numbers of what Foden does on the
08:24ball this is Manchester City on the left here and this is England on the right you can see really
08:29does struggle when they stick him out in one of those wide positions to have the same kind of
08:33impact like the passes into the final third into the box all the stuff you really need to do when
08:39you get on the ball he finds it so much harder to do in this England system than he does at City
08:44so I'll tell you this much right now like these 10 players will almost certainly start that first
08:49England game but I genuinely do not know if this is Phil Foden because he's just so good or it's
08:55Anthony Gordon because he fits what they're trying to do so much better like this is just me
09:00editorializing at this point right but if England do go the distance in this tournament like forget
09:05about the injuries every team's gonna have a load of injuries we can't predict those if they do go
09:10the distance in the tournament I will bet you this starting 11 and possibly even the shape
09:16changes quite dramatically as it goes on like I think genuinely England are simultaneously in a
09:21very bad but also very exciting position where there are still loads of question marks over this
09:26system and how it's going to work but they have with them in that squad so many really talented
09:32players that can provide genuinely quite interesting answers like Eze, Mainu, Wharton, Alexander-Arnold,
09:39Cole Palmer I don't think any of those are likely to start that first game but they could
09:43by the end of the group stages be the most important player in that side and just saw
09:48one final thing just in case anybody's tuned into this video to see if I have a big pop at Gareth
09:51Southgate or not right he's not without his limitations I do think his use of substitutions
09:56is occasionally a bit hesitant or just a bit undecisive but if one or two parts of this system
10:03click the way he is specifically trying to get them to click England are going to be a real
10:08real force in this tournament and that is entirely down to him I don't know you might still write
10:14something horrible about him in the box down below please absolutely feel free it's as much
10:17your comment section as it is mine and you're as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine but if my
10:22word is worth anything anything to you right just humour me for a second right yes he does have
10:29limitations yes there are one or two issues with him but if England do something at this tournament
10:33it will be because he came up with a new tactical approach he really committed to it and it was
10:39something that worked and is clearly quite an intelligent thing to do and you will simply have
10:44to hand it to him but then yes conversely if they do have a stinker then ultimately he fixed
10:49something that wasn't even broken and it's all his fault and those zip up tops do look absolutely
10:54horrible but until we find out which of those two realities we are living in please do consider
10:59subscribing to us here on 442 we will be covering the life out of every single England game we are
11:05moving can I tell you about it now we are moving into our brand new very exciting very sexy euro
11:11studio in the coming days so you'll see all of this fun plus some new toys and trinkets over there
11:15you don't want to miss this to do go and hit that button and you can get me on twitter of course you
11:18can at Adam Cleary c l e r y as well as all of the other socials I'm going to leave that up now
11:24because I'd like it when people follow me 442 socials in the corner of the video the latest
11:28issue of the magazine is euro centered because of course it is and it is tada absolutely brilliant
11:33that was the back page I didn't mean to do that but it does come with a wall chart a poster and
11:37all the loads of fun stuff that you like to have and even some postcards I think I got those with
11:41this one they're really nice but I until then I might not be able to tell you if it is coming home
11:45but I can certainly tell you that it is getting on a bit so I am going home that's not a joke goodbye